Treatment Free

[BMH]

You need really much new frames. And you need to seek for new pastures.

How many boxes each hive needs next summer, that they can produce honey.

To add hives 5 fold in one year is huge, when you calculate what happens then. But to sell those hives is good job too.

Yep. Im gonna wait until Jan for frames and going for 200 DN4 and 400 SN4, also need another 20/30 supers.

I have 2 or 3 more apiaries in line to bring it up to 6.

Im truly at my limit though.

Next year is all about maintaining numbers and selling nucs.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The rest of the UK Beekeepers are either crap beekeepers, have crap bees or have crap forage or all three..... BBKA for 2018 honey survey quote 30lb per colony average!

Trouble is, BBKA figures are gleaned from information sent in by BBKA members who follow BBKA dogma - the poor bloody bees are probably too busy recovering from overwintering in an uninsulated wind tunnel, 'spring cleaning' and being shook swarmed every whipped stitch to have much time to gather honey.

 

[SDM]

Yep. Annoying isnt it! Saying that, I made some 2 frame splits in June/July that now occupy three stories of a nuc box, so Im hoping the colonies I do have are plenty strong enough and give a reasonable return next year.

Double/treble nucs are a nice way to winter. I wouldn't risk trebles with the winds i get on Anglesey. My 2 frame mating nucs from May are in the same position, some into double brood hives, some single brood and few double nucs. 118 looking good for winter and the best queen rearing season possible says theyre well set to make good use of whatever were given next year.

 

[BMH]

I wasnt planning on overwintering on trebles but some definitely needed the space! I have a good mix of trebles, doubles and a few singles.

They sit, 3 to a pallet and are strapped down through the pallet slats so fingers crossed the wind doesnt topple them.

I bought in most of my queens but still managed to get about 10/15 mated. I'll keep those F2 for production next year and only sell overwintered 2018 F1 as early nucs.

It's quite scary how quickly you can expand when you eliminate the requirement for taking off honey!

The weather definitely helped though

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[Millet]

I more than doubled my hives this year but i still managed to extract around 150lb of honey..

 

[BMH]

Doubling hives is slightly different than going from 12 to 80 (including the 20 that were sold).

And, a lot of my treble nucs didnt need any feeding and were tipping the scale at over 40kg so I could have extracted some brood frames but didnt really have the time.

 

[Finman]

I more than doubled my hives this year but i still managed to extract around 150lb of honey..

And honey year was splended to all

.

 

[For want of a better word]

.the reaction we'd like is an explanation of why you cant keep two of tbe hardier races of bees alive in the softest climate in tbe U.K.
We'd also like to see how your claims about your cornish Amm stack up alongside the best of the rest, but on neither count are we expecting that reaction.

SDM... another trill!

I have kept just about every sub type of bee available in the UK.... British bred " Buckfast" and my own strain of NZ Italians do OK here... the problem is that when you are single handed running over 100 colonies.... and a breeding program... plus look after 2 autistic offspring and a poorly wife.... it is difficult to get to the supers before the yellow perils eat the lot!

Yeghes da

 

[For want of a better word]

I made zero honey this year but expanded from 12 to 60 colonies and and sold another 20 odd.

Not a drop of honey though and had to feed at various intervals.

I considered buying in packages and queening up with great Amm queens reared here in Cornwall.... my worry was that

A it was expensive
B ? importing bees with all the nasty viruses they could possibly have.

I used the Dave Cushman method of making up nucs to increase and rotating around the colonies.... no honey from them.. had to feed all year... and before the forum trills have a pop I used a mix of home grown buckfast hybrids and NZ Italians to provide masses odf brood!


Chons da

 

[SDM]

SDM... another trill!

I have kept just about every sub type of bee available in the UK.... British bred " Buckfast" and my own strain of NZ Italians do OK here... the problem is that when you are single handed running over 100 colonies.... and a breeding program... plus look after 2 autistic offspring and a poorly wife.... it is difficult to get to the supers before the yellow perils eat the lot!

Yeghes da

Like i said, i wasnr expecting you to actually respond to the issues we were interested in.

 

[SDM]

Doubling hives is slightly different than going from 12 to 80 (including the 20 that were sold).

Its doubling next year that will be interesting.

 

[For want of a better word]

Like i said, i wasnr expecting you to actually respond to the issues we were interested in.

Most don't give a tits' knickers !


Nos da

 

[BMH]

Its doubling next year that will be interesting.

More interesting will be trying not to double

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[For want of a better word]

More interesting will be trying not to double

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Selection of your best and merging to make up strong honey producing colonies should slow your increasing down... plus setting aside a few nucs to overwinter to make up for losses.

Chons da

 

[TooBee...]

I last treated in the 90's.
However, I don't derive all of my income from beekeeping.

I think from memory you use OMF, but I came across this study which I thought you and others would be interested in.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0005772X.2018.1431000

At first I was dismissive of it because it wasn't being shown whether that the beeks were breeding Varroa resistant bees, or if they had inadvertently established a non-lethal Varroa population (strictly speaking it would be a non-lethal strain of DWV) within the area.

BUT when they stated they had placed a Closed Mesh Floor in the hives, and had placed a 'ring' of Vaseline around the edges of it (to capture mites attempting to return to the brood area after falling) they found that ONLY 3.3% of mites even made it to the edge, not all of them would then have gone onto be able to return to the brood area, without the Vaseline.

They also noticed changes in the location of the Drone cells, the bees started rearing them in the centre of the brood area, instead of at the edges.

Certainly interesting, or at least for me as I had been thinking of adding something (Vaseline now seems to be a good idea) around the edge of the correx floor, which I'm planning on keeping in throughout the winter (now considering keeping it on all year, with a weekly clean).

 

[B+.]

I think from memory you use OMF,

That is correct.
I am also selecting for hygiene/VSH and see little sign of varroa in my colonies.

The vaseline on the edges is an old trick which contributes nothing to a heritable trait, so I don't do it. It could also affect the results of my tests to present a false picture

 

[Hivemaker.]

They also noticed changes in the location of the Drone cells, the bees started rearing them in the centre of the brood area, instead of at the edges.

Rearing them away from the cold open mesh floor.

A large temperature differential can exist in spring between the centre of the solid floor and ambient temperature, 19°C was measured in this study. In the presence of an open mesh floor the temperature at this point in the hive would tend towards ambient temperature, a reduction in temperature of 19°C. Hence, the use of open mesh floors exposes colonies to greater thermal risk in temperate areas during the critical spring build-up period, and from the foregoing also gives varroa mites a potential reproductive advantage.

 

[madasafish]

Rearing them away from the cold open mesh floor.

I discovered that in 2010 when I started in beekeeping and ran one TBH with an open OMF and one with a closed OMF.

(It was hardly a surprise as I do recall some simple physics)

 

[Hivemaker.]

I discovered that in 2010 when I started in beekeeping and ran one TBH with an open OMF and one with a closed OMF.

I remember you writing something about it back then.

I have never really used many of them, observations showed me the bees keep clear of them during cool weather and in winter, unlike solid floors.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I think from memory you use OMF,

The use of OMF has little (if any) impact on varroa

Rearing them away from the cold open mesh floor.

The ones in the study were on solid floor with mesh placed above.